


The High Noon Motel

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, MSR, Motel, Names, Splinter - Freeform, gundersons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 06:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4993555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our agents are playing hooky from work, and checking into a motel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The High Noon Motel

“Gunderson,” he said. “Tom and Linda Gunderson.”

“The Gundersons,” the woman behind the motel counter said. “You’ll be in room 213. Check out time is eleven a.m. Enjoy your stay.”

Mulder turned to his partner and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Let’s go, honey,” he suggested, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile. “Our room awaits.” 

They stepped out of the motel office and into the overcast afternoon. The building was painted sunshine yellow, pretty recently if she had to guess. There was still a smell of paint in the air as they approached the wooden staircase on the outside of the building. He took the steps up two at a time. But her legs were too small, and she fell behind.

“Wait up!” she shouted, her little legs pumping fervently. Her hand brushed the wooden railing as she ascended, and a splinter lodged in her thumb.

“Ouch! Damn it!” she exclaimed, and he stopped, worried, at the top of the stairs. He spun around.

“You OK?” he asked, descending to meet her in the middle where she stood staring at her thumb with disappointment.

“A splinter,” she answered, holding her thumb up to his face. “It’s pretty jammed in there.”

“Mm. I see that,” Mulder responded, his eyes squinting at the small piece of gray wood. “Let’s go up to the room and see what we can do.” She looked up at his face, and their eyes met. Before he released her hand he brought it up to his mouth and kissed her palm.

“Damn splinters,” she said with an exaggerated pout. Looking at him as he watched her with adoration made it impossible to hold the face, however, and her pout transformed into a smile.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Gunderson. I’m a medical doctor. C’mon.”

Their steps were slower and deliberate as they walked up together, his arm around her shoulder, her arm around his waist. Her other arm was still bent at the elbow as she held her thumb up to her face, trying to figure out the best way to remove the diabolical splinter. Tweezers would not work. It was buried too deep, nothing for them to grab onto. A needle was required to dig it out.

“We’re going to need a needle,” she stated plainly as he opened the door to their room.

“Do you have a sewing kit in your bag?”

“Yeah, but it’s still in the trunk.”

“Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

He left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. She turned on the light and sat down on the edge of the king sized bed. Her thumb was throbbing, and she wondered how the smallest injuries still managed to hurt so much. She ran her uninjured hand through her hair and sighed. The room was as ugly as any motel room she’d seen over the years, a red and purple bedspread with hideously large flowers, a bad painting of a house in a field above the bed. There was an old television, two uncomfortable looking red chairs, several lamps.

As her gaze fell upon the “do not disturb” sign hanging on the doorknob she wondered briefly what the hell she was doing here at the High Noon Motel with her partner Fox Mulder. Well, no, she wasn’t here with him. Linda Gunderson was here with her husband Tom.

What was this game they were playing? Did they need to be other people to have sex? No. They had been Scully and Mulder the first two times. They were certainly not Dana and Fox. She could not imagine that, which was fine with her. Dana and Fox no longer existed, had grown into different people and faded away.

Dana had thought that someday she would have three kids and a promising career in medicine, or perhaps be a ballerina. That had been her at twelve, however, and that girl was no longer real. She was a fantasy imagining another fantasy. Scully chased monsters with a man whom she was now certain she loved, a man she was not married to, a man who had tried to help her conceive. But she had not been able to conceive. She was empty, out of chances.

Scully closed her eyes, trying to think of something happy. This was supposed to be a fun Wednesday playing hooky from the office. The Gundersons were having a good time. The Gundersons  loved each other, and that was all that mattered.

When she opened her eyes, Mulder was there. He stood in the open doorway, frozen, looking at her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hands clutching the sewing kit. “And don’t say you’re fine.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” she said, and tipped over, landing on her side on the bed, facing him. “Come in and close the door.”

He complied, first stopping, she noticed, to put the “do not disturb” sign on the outside doorknob.

“I was only gone for a minute, and when I got back… what’s wrong?” he repeated.

“I was just thinking,” she paused. “Did you know that when I was twelve I wanted to have three kids? Two boys and a girl. I also wanted to be a ballerina, just to let you know how silly my dreams were then.”

“Wanting three kids isn’t silly, Scully.”

“I know. I just… I was just thinking about that girl. About how I am no longer her, and somehow I feel like I let her down a little bit.”

“No. No you didn’t. She would think you’re a badass with a hot boyfriend.”

This made her smile the smallest little smirk. It was enough. He would take it.

“I thought the Gundersons were married,” she said.

“Oh, they are. We are. And Dr. Gunderson is here to operate on that thumb. Give it here.”

She sat up and offered him her hand as he knelt down next to the bed. It took only a few seconds to remove the splinter, but to her it felt like longer. When it was out, he put the needle on the bedside table and held her hand between both of his.

“All better,” he said.

Her other hand came up and pulled their still-joined hands to her sternum. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. She felt her own heart beating.

“Mulder?” she asked, her voice coming out small.

“Tom Gunderson,” he said in a whisper.

“No. Mulder,” she said, and gently took her hands from his. One hand came up to the back of his neck, the other rested slightly higher, in his hair. She pulled him toward her, and his hands wrapped around her back.

“OK, Scully,” he said, his lips brushing hers.


End file.
